


A Three Piece Problem (The Rebound Remix)

by navaan



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Confessions, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Pre-Threesome, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-07 15:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15911190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Marcus sits them down to talk and Sherlock sees where this is going - because both he and Watson are already interested.





	A Three Piece Problem (The Rebound Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beanarie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Rebound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9654839) by [beanarie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie). 



> Remix of [Rebound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9654839) by beanarie and cites some pieces of dialog.

“You like him,” Watson tells him while she puts together her morning ritual cereal. She’s wearing the kind of clothes that indicate she has just returned from her morning workout. He doesn’t need to ask who she’s talking about, instead focuses all his attention on Clyde and his progress across the table, when the small thin is stopped very happily by the mount of lettuce waiting there.

“Don’t you?” she prods, when she realizes he’s going to speed type on his phone now instead of engaging in a long drawn out conversation about one Marcus Bell and his effect on Holmes and what it might mean in either of their lives he allowed himself to see it. 

An effect that most people and probably Bell himself are not aware of.

But whatever Watson thinks, Holmes himself _is_.

And apparently so is Watson. Her skills over observation have always been impressive.

“Yes, Watson, of course, I do. He is one of the rather more competent detectives I’ve met over the years. So it’s not wrong to say I like him. I have indeed taken an interest.”

“I mean you like-like him.”

“Of course. Yes, I do. As do you, I might observe.”

That startles her. For about a half-second.

After all she’s a detective.

And a damn good one if he was allowed to cast the judgment. 

Holmes looks up from his personal messaging war with Everyone. He has not yet cast his final vote on who’ll end up blackmailing whom today. Watson would tell him it’s childish anyway, but he’s terribly enjoying it.

Watson for her part has stopped in front of the kitchen sink and is now looking at him with that blank-but-not-quite-blank face that tells him she’s thinking this through. Then she shifts her weight from one hip to the other, her ponytail falling over her shoulder with the sudden motion. 

“I think you’re right. I do.” The way she phrases that says more than enough. Watson wasn’t going to pretend. “Where does that leave us?”

He picks up Clyde to set him back onto the floor. “It changes nothing at all. Romantic entanglements are only a distraction, Watson. I have no time for it. And Marcus, as I might point out, has a woman in his life he’s very much in love with. Which means there won’t be any competition.”

He has a feeling that she can tell that this is only the half-truth. 

After all she a damn good detective.

“Huh,” Watson says and looks at the phone on the table, where messages from his hacker antagonists keep coming in with loud ringtone noises. “Figure that.”

* * *

That Detective Bell sits both of them down when there’s no case to be discussed isn’t exactly out of the ordinary. He and Joan have the kind of friendship that entails keeping each other in the loop, and Holmes himself has made efforts to be a better friend and listener when other people he cares for need him.

This seems serious though.

“Chantal broke up with me.”

“Oh no,” Watson says not without empathy. Both of them have decided long ago not to act on their attraction - to not make it a competition, because Marcus hasn’t shown a sign of interest. They’re friends here and they were involved in some of the trouble that arose from the detective's heartfelt relationship. 

Marcus is waiting for his tea to cool that Holmes handed him. It’s something Holmes has seen him do very often in the past. He knows he won’t drink before it’s cooled enough for his taste. He appreciates the patience and foresight. 

“Why?” 

“Why?” Marcus repeats and raises an eyebrow. 

The question seems to startle him and that’s unexpected. As he has opened the conversation with an announcement of his break-up, a question about circumstances should be expected. Holmes leans back and takes in the details.

His read on people is impeccable. 

And he knows Marcus well.

The break-up was not the topic he came here to announce or discuss.

The information was the preamble.

Holmes’s eyes flit to Watson’s face. She too, he can see, is thinking this over.

“Because things didn’t work out between us. We’re still friends.”

“So there’s still hope?” Watson suggests.

“No.” Marcus, Holmes notes, isn’t at all perturbed by it.

Serious. Calm. Here to say his piece. Here to sit them down and talk. Because whatever he’s here for, it’s something he needs both of them to know.

Nodding to himself, Holmes sits up and wraps his arms around himself to make his hands stop moving. 

He’s putting this together. But he’s also waiting for Marcus to say whatever he has to say. 

“She’s with someone else,” Marcus explains shortly as if he wants to close the subject.

The detective in him knows that to clear up the situation they all need to get the information that simmering under the surface out in the air. And because Watson has decided she’s going to be the understanding friend and Marcus has not yet revealed why he’s here, Holmes supposes he needs to be the one to motion for Marcus to speak and ask: “Who is he? The gentleman who... Or were you not informed?” 

He doesn’t right out ask, why Marcus has asked them to sit down with them to talk it through.

They are friends, yes.

But he’s here because he needs their help working through something. And Holmes has a good guess what it is. He glances over at Watson, who is nodding along, oblivious and supportive.

All muscles in Holmes body are tensing up. He avoided thinking about a scenario like this because there will be tension if he’s right...

They do get an answer, but the name is just a name and Marcus still seems tense but neither perturbed or disturbed by the fact that his relationship ended. After the dramatic events that led up to this, perhaps he has come to the conclusion it would never have worked. That would explain why for the past month or so he seemed less emotionally invested, more distant when talking about his lady. She ended something he was ready to end long before.

Holmes remains silent, but he can’t help that his face must be showing some of his displeasure at Marcus telling them how he was passed over for another man. But that is not the source of the tension.

“I’m surprised you were the one to get dumped,” he finally says and Marcus' eyes meet him in a flash, searching.

“Yes,” Watson agrees, “I thought she was smart.”

For her benefit he adds because the man across from them already knows Holmes has come to the right conclusion: “I meant because Marcus had been planning to be the ‘dumper’ rather than the, uh, ‘dumpee’. For the last month at least.“

Marcus tries to explain then — and for Holmes, it becomes just a matter of who the chosen new partner is. He can’t tell. Marcus' eyes shift to his, to Watson, back to his tea. They’re all friends and there are the underlying signs of affection and knowing each other well between all three of them.

He tires to prepare for the final revelation.

If it’s Watson, he’ll be supportive.

If it’s him he’ll be flattered but apprehensive. He doesn’t want to disrupt either of these working relationships — _friendships_.

Is Marcus hesitating because he knows they both have an interest, a hidden affection for him that they have never acted on to not complicate their partnership as consulting detectives?

And then Marcus looks into his tea for too long, shifts his gaze from one to the other and Holmes makes a sound of sudden understanding. “Come out with it,” he suggests.

If not for the tension it would be hilarious to see the usually put together detective clamber to his feet to get sugar for his tea after he sipped it for a solid two minutes. “I — I was wondering if — Look I just like _you_ ,” and he emphasizes the "you" in a way that washes away the final bits of lingering doubt in Holmes’ mind.”

“Both of us?” Watson asks with widening eyes, putting together the pieces of the puzzle now as well. “Wait, wait, _we_ ’re your rebound?”

“No, Watson,” Holmes disagrees when he sees that Marcus isn’t yet done floundering. “We’re the reason why he’s been thinking of ending his relationship before it ended.”

She looks at him.

They never talked this through more thoroughly than the occasional jibe. They certainly never talked about an option where nobody would be left out.

“Exactly. You got me. And if it doesn’t work out, I got an excuse to get out clean. No more getting shot, no more criminal mastermind exes coming out of the woodwork. Just me in a world that makes sense.” Marcus smirks, finding his equilibrium again, now that the truth is out.

“Marcus,” Watson says flattered but cautious, “Sherlock and I were never…”

“We can work on that,” Holmes offers. He’s flexible in the games of sexual pleasure and he feels affection for both these people, who may just be the most important people in his often lonely existence. And there’s always the option to keep Marcus at the center of this menage-a-trois. 

Watson makes up her mind and kisses him briefly on the lips and he’s surprised by the sudden thrill of it. Marcus is staring at them too and that heightens the excitement of it.

“Don’t you want to come here?” Watson asks, putting enough teasing and promise in her voice that it gets to Holmes, even before Marcus sets into motion and is by their side with a few long strides, tea forgotten on the edge of the sink.

He leans in to kiss her, then Holmes, both kisses testing and probing and both kisses turning into something more.

Watson wraps an arm around either of them and brings their foreheads together. “Fine with me.”

“We’ll talk about this,” Marcus warns.

“Later,” Holmes suggests, aware that most things in this won’t be decided with words, but gestures and unspoken negotiation. 

His mind has stopped running through all the possible complications though, blessedly quiet after the pieces of a greater puzzle have fallen together for now.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me for fic updates on [tumblr](https://navaanwrites.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/navaanwrites). This fic has a post on the tumblr [here](https://navaanwrites.tumblr.com/post/178575255629/a-three-piece-problem-the-rebound-remix-navaan) in case you want to share it. It also has a page on my [Dreamwidth](https://navaan.dreamwidth.org/620356.html).


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